How Bukele benefits from accepting US deportation flights: $20,000 per inmate a year and Trump’s favor
The controversial transfer of migrants to a mega-prison in El Salvador will bring its president more than just economic benefits, according to analysts
In a new production with clear cinematic ambitions, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, on Sunday showed the world another video from his mega-prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). In the video, dozens of police officers subdue several men whose hands and feet are bound, put some of them inside armored vehicles and others on buses, and transport them to the prison facility, where other officials shave their heads and dress them in white prison clothes. The most surprising thing is that this time, the new inmates are not just gang members of Mara Salvatrucha 13 and Barrio 18, the criminal groups for which the prison was originally built, but also — according to the Trump administration’s version of events — alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. And all of the latter individuals were deported from the United States.
